Virtual Reality Helps Control Unmotivated Angry Outbursts

It turns out that immersive VR experiences can be really helpful in controlling unmotivated angry outbursts. That's according to a recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking (via Neuroscience News).

A group of researchers including Jae-Jin Kim, MD, Ph.D., from Yonsei University in South Korea, have conducted an experiment. They gathered 60 young men and divided them into two groups: the high aggression group and the low aggression group. The groups were formed according to the scores of the Aggression Questionnaire which the participants had taken prior to the experiment.

Both groups were put through the two pieces of training. The first one, called Anger Exposure Training, was comprised of various extremely uncomfortable and annoying virtual environments that were designed to provoke the participants' anger and facilitate anger control. Meanwhile, the second one, called Mindfulness Training, on the contrary, provided a meditation experience aimed at calming down the participants.

The researchers analyzed the anger scores and the comfort scores obtained by these tasks and compared them between the high aggression and the low aggression groups. The results have shown that the first piece of training "reduced the level of anger" in both groups, while the second piece of training "increased the level of comfort" in the two groups as well.

Based on these results, Dr. Kim concluded that VR has a very positive effect on controlling angry outbursts. "Therefore, further research on the effectiveness of the VR-based anger control training program is worthy conducting in individuals who express excessive aggression," he said.

You can learn more about the study here. Also, don't forget to join our new Reddit page, our new Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.